SAS vs. NSAS: Analysis and comparison of self-adaptive systems and non-self-adaptive systems based on smells and patterns

Self-Adaptive Systems are usually built of a managed part, implementing their functionality, and a managing part, implementing their self-adaptation. The complexity of self-adaptive systems results also from the existence of the managing part and the interaction between the managed and the managing parts. The nonself- adaptive systems may be seen as the managed part of self-adaptive systems. The self-adaptive systems are evaluated based on their performances resulted from the self-adaptation. However, self-adaptive systems are software systems, hence, also their software quality is equally important. Our analysis compares the internal quality of self-adaptive and non-self-adaptive systems by considering code smells, architectural smells, and GoF's design patterns. This comparison provides an insight to the health of the self-adaptive systems with respect to the non-self-adaptive systems (the last being considered as a quality reference).